The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six by Louis L’Amour Page B

get me out to the car. He wanted to get me out to the car so he could kill me.
    What was left for me? What was the way out? There had been an officer in the army who told us there was always a way out, that there was always an answer…one had only to think.
    Fear.
    That was my salvation, my weapon, the one thing with which I could fight! Suddenly, I knew. My only weapon lay before me, the weapon of my mind. I must think slowly, carefully, clearly. And I must be an actor.
    Here beside me was a man who had killed, a man with a gun who certainly wanted to kill me. My only weapon was my own mind and the fear that lay ingrained deep in the convolutions of his brain. Though he was behaving calmly he must be a frightened, worried man. I would frighten him more. What was the old saying about the guilty fleeing when no man pursued? I must talk to him…I must lie, cheat, anything to keep myself alive.
    His fear was my weapon, so I must spin around this man a web of illusion and fear, a web so strong that he would have no escape…
    “All of you fellows are the same”—I picked up my coffee, smiling a little—“you plan so carefully and then overlook the obvious. I always liked you, Marmer,” that was a lie, for I never had, “and I’m glad to see you now.”
    “Glad?” He stared at me.
    “What I mean,” I made my voice dry and a little tired, “should be obvious. I’ll admit I was startled when I saw you here, but I was not worried because this could be an opportunity for both of us. You can save your life and I can regain my reputation with the company.”
    “What the hell are you talking about?” He stared at me. He was skeptical, but he was not sure. That was my weapon…he could not be sure.
    For what mind is free of doubt? In what mind lies no fear? How great then must be the fear of a man who has murdered twice over? The world is his enemy, all eyes are watching him. All ears are listening, all whispers are about him.
    When could he be sure that somebody else, some clerk, some filling station attendant, somebody who had known him…when could he be sure he was not seen?
    A criminal always believes things will turn out right for him and he believes he is smarter, shrewder…or at least he believes that on the surface…beneath lies a morass of doubt, a deep sink of insecurity and fear.
    “Marmer,” I spoke carefully and in a not unfriendly tone, “you’ve been living in a fool’s paradise. Not one instant since you committed your crime have you been free. Your wife got your insurance money so you believed your crime had been successful.”
    Behind the counter was a box of tea bags, it was partly behind a plastic tray of spoons but I could see CONSTANT COM …written on the box.
    “You forgot,” I continued, “about Constant.”
    “What?”
    “Bob Constant was an FBI man, one of their crack operators. He quit the government and accepted a better paying job as head of the investigation setup in our insurance company.
    “He’d been in the business a long time and such men develop a feeling for
wrongness,
for something out of place. So he had a hunch about your supposed death.”
    Oh, I had his attention now! He was staring at me, his eyes dilated. And then as I talked I actually remembered something that had bothered me. I seemed to see again a bunch of keys lying on a policeman’s desk…his keys. Something about those keys had worried me, but at the time I could find nothing wrong. How blind I had been! Now, at last, I could see them again and I knew what had been wrong!
    “He checked all your things, and when he came to your keys, he checked each one. Your house key was not among them.”
    He drew a quick, shocked breath. Then he said, “So what?” But he did not look at me, and his fingers fidgeted at his napkin.
    “Why should a man’s house key not be in his pocket? He was puzzled about that. It was not logical, he said. I objected that your wife could let you in, but he would not accept that.